Winners of the annual newspaper list in the past include York in 2018, Bristol in 2017 and Hampshire in 2016.

Salisbury has been named the best place to live in the UK, just a year after a novichok poisoning attack hit the city.

In its annual rundown of the best places to live, the Sunday Times said that the Wiltshire city had a "real collective spirit" in the wake of the poisonings, which thrust it in to the global limelight last year.

Former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with the nerve agent in March last year, and both survived the attack. The Russian intelligence agency GRU has been blamed for the attack, an accusation it denied.

However, the incident later claimed the life of a woman, Dawn Sturgess, who had come into contact with a discarded perfume bottle thought to have been used in the attack.

Image:The bench where the Skripals were found was covered with a protective tent

Commenting on the poll, home editor for the Sunday Times Helen Davies said: "Salisbury has shown real collective spirit in dealing with a chemical attack that saw the cathedral city become the centre of world headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Advertisement

"There are still parts of the city where the clean-up continues, but to bounce back and be even stronger is a sure sign of a very special community, which is one of the reasons we have chosen Salisbury as the best place to live in Britain in 2019."

"It remains a divinely attractive and welcoming place. It's handy for coast, countryside and London, has some of the best schools in the southwest, a great market and it's very strong culturally, too."